


Proud of You

by aixre



Category: Original Work
Genre: First Person, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, Multiverse, Therapy, angst with a bittersweet conclusion, introspective fiction, multiverse au of reality, terrible superpowers, this idea popped into my head while boiling pasta and I ran with it, way too philosophical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26501653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aixre/pseuds/aixre
Summary: In a world where some children see visions of their alternate selves, how does one cope with knowing all the possibilities?The scientists say that there is a multiverse containing every possible arrangement of atoms in the universe. There are other universes beyond the stars with arrangements as random as plasma. The philosophers say that for every choice you make, a new universe is created. I don’t know which one is true. Maybe both, maybe neither. The why and how are immaterial. The others are there.





	Proud of You

The scientists say that there is a multiverse containing every possible arrangement of atoms in the universe. There are other universes beyond the stars with arrangements as random as plasma. The philosophers say that for every choice you make, a new universe is created. I don’t know which one is true. Maybe both, maybe neither. The why and how are immaterial. The others are there. 

I was born able to see the others. Some say it’s a gift, some say a curse. I’m not the only one. Once in a thousand children, there are the ones who dream. Our best guess is that we only see a fraction of the others. The ones who share the same genes, the same parents, the same time and place of birth. We see the universes that overlapped at the moment of our birth. 

In my earliest memories, I dreamt of a hall of mirrors. A palace of identical twins. The ones closest by indistinguishable from myself. The same face, the same hair, the same clothes. I was never afraid. I’d had the dreams from birth, or so the scientists would guess. When I learned to crawl and walk, they did too, each in the distance, each impossibly far away no matter how nearby.

As a child, I began to explore. The further I walked-and I never got tired-the more different the visions became. Different haircuts, different colors of clothing. Different clothes. I started school and my classmates talked of dreams like stories, dreams like wisps of smoke, dreams like tomorrow and yesterday. I confessed that when I closed my eyes, I saw the hall of mirrors. A teacher heard me and took me away to ask questions. I was lucky. I found out what I was and was sent to therapy at the town clinic one afternoon a week. No one in my family had known a seer before, but we’re not so rare as to be unknown. My therapist-mentor was a seer too, and had chosen to devote herself to guiding others. I didn’t think I needed guiding. I was one of the lucky ones. She focused on teaching me skills, how to move faster than walking. How to remember the branching hallways, how to see further. 

I explored every night. I wanted to talk to them, but they were beyond talking to. I wondered if they saw me like I saw all of them. I paid little heed to the close ones anymore. I wanted to see all of me. The distant ones scared me a little, the ones with short hair and smiles, the ones with sad eyes. The ones in casts. The ones with scars. My therapist-mentor said not to go that way. Turn around and look for something else. See how many sports they’re playing, how many freckles they have. Find the ones who intrigue you and watch them. She gave me one warning. If the halls turn cold around you, close your eyes and run.

By age ten, the therapist-mentor was more of a therapist. I was wistful. I could do so many things with my mind and my hands, but I was graceless. I could see the others dancing. I loved animals and could see the others with pets, with horses, but only had a sad betta in a bowl the pet store had said was good enough. And I could see the flipped ones. The ones in short hair and cargo shorts. The ones with bodies that weren’t changing. The therapist-mentor said to ignore the edge cases. We see first the ones who are most like us, she said. We see only ourselves, but we are not all meant to follow the same path. Let the ones in the center be a comfort that you are never alone.   
I was twelve when I felt the cold. I was watching one of the fierce ones. I was all clever. I was all fierce, but some of me were wilder. That one was so very many branches away, all alone on a hill, on a horse, in armor. I closed my eyes and ran and didn’t open them until I was warm again, among the ones like me, in pale sleeping tunics with chlorine-faded wavy hair. My eyes stared back at me, as always. All of me have my eyes. 

The next night, I returned to see the fierce ones. The hall was missing a mirror. I wanted to scream, but the hall of mirrors was silent. That hall was missing many mirrors. For many nights, I saw the spaces more than myselves. I sought them and looked between their identical neighbors. I noticed the halls that ceased to exist from one night to the next. I saw that when a gap formed, it widened the next day, and I would be fleeing the cold again. What choice did they make to disappear?

At fifteen, I knew more of myself than I ever had. I saw some of the edge cases become less distant. I chose to cut off my hair. My therapist-mentor sent me to another therapist. The next night, my neighbors were happy like me. Too many of the further-away ones had sad eyes, my sad eyes. Too many had hands marked with crimson, my hands. I felt the cold too many times. Once, I didn’t turn away. I wish I had. The cold came from the floor and I knew what was under the palace, another hall of mirrors deep within the earth. Just like the one above, I imagined, but there would be no movement, and we would not all be growing up at the same time. I recoiled from the thought of all the little dead ones, glad at least I didn’t have to see them, but afraid to see the spaces. Despite my therapist-mentor’s reassurances, it was weeks before I explored again. 

I saw so many. I saw the ones like me, the ones with their books and hopes and fears, the ones despairing, the ones with other hopes and fears. The ones who would kill me. The ones I would kill. And always the dying. My therapist-mentor was found dead too. I wondered what she saw the nights before. I wondered how many of her were left. 

I lived. I found my place. I found my happiness. I found my people, different people, living people. People of the day.

I am restless. I have choices and wonder which of them are right, which of them are wrong. I have passions, and know that for every one there is another me who is better, another me who is more devoted, another me who doesn’t have to go to a day job. There are me’s who are braver and more selfless. There are the ones who lie alone in cells, who fought and lost. There are the ones with haunted eyes or no eyes at all who fought and won. There are the ones with fresh bruises and bloodshot eyes every night, who are still fighting.

There are me’s in white coats of all sorts. The ones training to be doctors and veterinarians, biologists and chemists. The ones who chose that life. There are the muddy ones, the ones who are with the horses. There are the ones in bright costumes on stage, on set, on ice, the ones who beat all the odds. There are the ones who make the costumes. There are the ones who do everything I ever dreamed of once, or tried and failed at, or love but cannot make into a life. 

The worst are the ones I fear. The me’s who didn’t make it. The imprisoned ones, yes, and the sick ones, the poor ones, the ones who toil away at some soulless retailer and probably will until they die. The ones who surely have all the same dreams and will never even get to try. 

And there are the ones I hate. The ones who went to the wrong places. The ones who the fighters die to defeat. The ones that make me wonder how I could be them. I think that’s why I want to kill them. Not justice, after all, just pride. 

The others are me, but different. I see them when I close my eyes. Men and women and people in white coats, in scrubs, at desks, at sewing machines, in prison, on ice, on horses, alone in the dark. And so many more I cannot recognize, that make me wonder how I ended up there, on the other side of the world, in space, or happy in roles I couldn’t imagine caring about or wanting, couldn’t imagine choosing. 

In roles I would never have chosen. 

In places I would never have gone.

People who look like me and were born like me but are not me.

The others are not me.

The others belong to themselves.

The next night, I walked the halls I loved, the halls that hurt. To the ones who suffered, I whispered an apology. You deserve better. To the ones who inflicted suffering, I shouted a curse. May you be bound from doing harm and may you face the consequences of your actions. The ones I envied, I scrutinized. How much you have missed, I thought, to perfect the gifts you have, whether the road was easy or hard-won, but I wish you the best in your lives. May what brings you joy never cease to make you happy. To them and the martyrs, I offered a blessing. I’m so proud of you.


End file.
